In the traditional Christian worldview, God sets the overall path of human history, a history confined to one planet for a few thousand years. Individuals can choose to be on the side of good or evil, and maybe make a modest difference to local human experience, but they can’t change the largest story. That is firmly in God’s hands. Yet an ability to personally choose good or evil, or to make a difference to mere thousands of associates, seemed to be plenty enough to motivate most Christians to action.
We give distributions over grabby origin dates, and also distributions over the volume they control as a function of origin rank. They will eventually take ALL of space.
Could this get more quantitative? I'd love to see the paper report numbers on:
* In expectation, what fraction of the accessible universe will be colonised by aliens even if we don't become grabby?* What's the ratio between the expected amount of space we'll arrive *first* to that aliens will *eventually* arrive to; and the expected amount of space that *could* be colonised by us but that *wouldn't* ever be colonised by anyone else.
These seem like the main decision-relevant numbers that can fall out of projects like this. I discuss some reasons for that in my related post, here: https://forum.effectivealtr...
It it still "observer selection" if there's no evidence that the non-existent observers ever actually existed? I think so - and think that's the conventional usage. If not what should we call it?
Certainly possible worlds without observers are the most common ones because they don't need any physical constant fine tuning for life. However, do possible worlds with more observers need more fine tuning than possible worlds with some but few observers? It's not obvious whether the answer is yes. Then it's not obvious whether possible worlds with more observers are rarer.
"We're more likely to find ourselves alone in a smaller volume than not-alone in a larger volume." - Whether that is true or false surely depends how much larger the larger volume is. The larger the volume of a possible world, the more likely it contains other observers. I also don't see how volume would be connected to rarity of a possible world.
"We can actually infer our own complexity/rarity by looking at how big our world has to have had become before it's likely to spawn us. Or vice versa." - I agree that, with Ockham's razor, the complexity of a possible world is directly related to it's "rarity", which is directly related to its lower prior probability. However, I don't think big possible worlds are necessarily more complex. Very simple laws and initial conditions can plausibly lead to very "complex-looking" possible worlds, or to infinitely large possible worlds, or both. Such possible worlds would have very little true complexity and hence high prior probability.
But perhaps possible worlds with higher observer _density_ would indeed need more fine tuned parameters, which would increase the complexity of those worlds, which would decrease their prior probability. This wouldn't even contradict the the observer selection / SIA argument according to which our own existence is evidence that there are many observers-who-we-could-be. Because the SIA argument says nothing about observer density in space. We could have an infinitely large possible world with infinitely many observers in it, but with very low observer-density.
You are right. In responding to Tim's comment I lost the context and incorrectly interpreted "observer selection" in (what seems to me) its more usual sense. My bad:-)
I'm not sure you can assess the motivations of traditional Christians in relation to the difference humans can make in that worldview, without accounting for the fact that, in that worldview, the good/evil choices of each person will cause that person to spend literally eternity in either the best possible state or the worst possible state.
On further reflection, use of observer selection to conclude that there are many alien technological civilizations is contingent on a) some kind of multiverse in which to do the selecting (which is still quite unsettled), and b) positive correlation between number of civilizations and the number of intelligent beings (which seems quite likely).
What's your argument for there (now) being aliens? Humans being early doesn't imply us not also being the earliest species. If we are the earliest species, there are no aliens. At least not yet.
I cannot imagine a scenario where the advantage of surprise is more valuable than a "don't fuck with me" signal.
In the animal world, camouflage is for animals that can run and for plants that can hide between other plants. Earth cannot run and it cannot feasibly hide because our oxygen atmosphere is very visible. Earth is more like a solitary plant and its defense has to be more like poison or thorns, which evolution seems to clearly favor announcing with bright colors and intense smell.
I don't see why I should trust whatever thoughts I had in such a mental mode, unless I could verify their claims via analysis out of that mode. So then the question is whether I will come up with novel hypotheses in such a mode that I would not otherwise generate. I don't find that plausible.
This is a really cool follow-up to your article on grabby aliens. I did not agree with that article on first read-through, and I found the conclusion to be prima facie implausible, but then went through every step of the argument and ultimately found myself convinced. Now I'm on board with the idea that most of the lifetime of the universe will be an era of interpenetration of independently-spawned spheres of colonization.
I think our species has produced some worthwhile things and has the potential for far more, and so I'd rather not have it just overrun and trampled. That makes me think we would be wise place a higher priority on spreading out sooner. We want to be heavyweights when we eventually smash up against others. An interesting feature of your findings is that we won't get much warning before we become engulfed, so we can't afford to be merely reactive. Are we underrating the existential risk of being eaten by some aliens' paperclip maximizer? Can we think of some seeds to plant now that could eventually grow into effective countermeasures to this?
We give distributions over grabby origin dates, and also distributions over the volume they control as a function of origin rank. They will eventually take ALL of space.
Could this get more quantitative? I'd love to see the paper report numbers on:
* In expectation, what fraction of the accessible universe will be colonised by aliens even if we don't become grabby?* What's the ratio between the expected amount of space we'll arrive *first* to that aliens will *eventually* arrive to; and the expected amount of space that *could* be colonised by us but that *wouldn't* ever be colonised by anyone else.
These seem like the main decision-relevant numbers that can fall out of projects like this. I discuss some reasons for that in my related post, here: https://forum.effectivealtr...
It it still "observer selection" if there's no evidence that the non-existent observers ever actually existed? I think so - and think that's the conventional usage. If not what should we call it?
Certainly possible worlds without observers are the most common ones because they don't need any physical constant fine tuning for life. However, do possible worlds with more observers need more fine tuning than possible worlds with some but few observers? It's not obvious whether the answer is yes. Then it's not obvious whether possible worlds with more observers are rarer.
"We're more likely to find ourselves alone in a smaller volume than not-alone in a larger volume." - Whether that is true or false surely depends how much larger the larger volume is. The larger the volume of a possible world, the more likely it contains other observers. I also don't see how volume would be connected to rarity of a possible world.
"We can actually infer our own complexity/rarity by looking at how big our world has to have had become before it's likely to spawn us. Or vice versa." - I agree that, with Ockham's razor, the complexity of a possible world is directly related to it's "rarity", which is directly related to its lower prior probability. However, I don't think big possible worlds are necessarily more complex. Very simple laws and initial conditions can plausibly lead to very "complex-looking" possible worlds, or to infinitely large possible worlds, or both. Such possible worlds would have very little true complexity and hence high prior probability.
But perhaps possible worlds with higher observer _density_ would indeed need more fine tuned parameters, which would increase the complexity of those worlds, which would decrease their prior probability. This wouldn't even contradict the the observer selection / SIA argument according to which our own existence is evidence that there are many observers-who-we-could-be. Because the SIA argument says nothing about observer density in space. We could have an infinitely large possible world with infinitely many observers in it, but with very low observer-density.
You are right. In responding to Tim's comment I lost the context and incorrectly interpreted "observer selection" in (what seems to me) its more usual sense. My bad:-)
I'm not sure you can assess the motivations of traditional Christians in relation to the difference humans can make in that worldview, without accounting for the fact that, in that worldview, the good/evil choices of each person will cause that person to spend literally eternity in either the best possible state or the worst possible state.
At least SIA would predict rather more than fewer observers-we-could-be. Which would mean our own existence is evidence for there being aliens.
If you are willing to assume enough weird randomness, then no data is ever evidence for any theory whatsoever.
No, no multiverse is needed here.
On further reflection, use of observer selection to conclude that there are many alien technological civilizations is contingent on a) some kind of multiverse in which to do the selecting (which is still quite unsettled), and b) positive correlation between number of civilizations and the number of intelligent beings (which seems quite likely).
What's your argument for there (now) being aliens? Humans being early doesn't imply us not also being the earliest species. If we are the earliest species, there are no aliens. At least not yet.
Please name three useful, actionable, novel insights that anyone has ever had from psychedelics.
I cannot imagine a scenario where the advantage of surprise is more valuable than a "don't fuck with me" signal.
In the animal world, camouflage is for animals that can run and for plants that can hide between other plants. Earth cannot run and it cannot feasibly hide because our oxygen atmosphere is very visible. Earth is more like a solitary plant and its defense has to be more like poison or thorns, which evolution seems to clearly favor announcing with bright colors and intense smell.
I don't see why I should trust whatever thoughts I had in such a mental mode, unless I could verify their claims via analysis out of that mode. So then the question is whether I will come up with novel hypotheses in such a mode that I would not otherwise generate. I don't find that plausible.
This is a really cool follow-up to your article on grabby aliens. I did not agree with that article on first read-through, and I found the conclusion to be prima facie implausible, but then went through every step of the argument and ultimately found myself convinced. Now I'm on board with the idea that most of the lifetime of the universe will be an era of interpenetration of independently-spawned spheres of colonization.
I think our species has produced some worthwhile things and has the potential for far more, and so I'd rather not have it just overrun and trampled. That makes me think we would be wise place a higher priority on spreading out sooner. We want to be heavyweights when we eventually smash up against others. An interesting feature of your findings is that we won't get much warning before we become engulfed, so we can't afford to be merely reactive. Are we underrating the existential risk of being eaten by some aliens' paperclip maximizer? Can we think of some seeds to plant now that could eventually grow into effective countermeasures to this?
i sincerely think you should experiment with a nonzero amount of psychedelics an afterwards ask yourself if these are relevant questions